Their first pause was in a smiling world. Southern Spain, roughly the part which is Andalusia now, for many ages had drawn the wandering hungers of the nations. Here had been Tartessos, the Tarshish of the thunder of Isaiah, a realm near the present sites of Seville and Cadiz, known as the Land of Silver and whose greatness was synchronous with Crete. Here had been Phœnician Malaca and Gades, cities famous for their gay vice. Here had been Bætican Rome, birthplace of Seneca and of the Stoic mind which in reality was Spanish. Here, from Babylon, came the urgent Jews among the indolent Visigoths. A smiling world. On the breasts of the Sierras, groves of olive and of cork. In the valleys rivers that were veins of wealth. Luxuriant crops, fat kine, orchards and vineyards: shade: and by the alternance of sun and cool a natural culture. Now within this mellowness, the harsh Idea born of the desert dearth. Historians will give you the facts: how Andalusia did not hold the Arab: how he swarmed the mesas of Castile: how he fanned east to the Ebro and west to the Asturias: how only stubborn knots of Basques withheld him: how he scaled the abrupt wall of Spain and poured down the suaver Pyrenees of France; and how at last, near Poictiers, he was stopped by Charles Martel and driven back forever. The truth is otherwise. Not the Franks, but the smiling south of Spain stopped Islam. When the Arabs faced the French at “Tours,” they were turned back already. The desert, the mountains, the incessant war could not weaken Islam. These were its food and its health. But Andalusia was poison. A luxuriant land worked on the spirit of the Arab, causing in the rear a flinching and dissension. This, several years after the “defeat of Tours,” caused the return from France.